Minerva Cuevas’s monumental relief mural The Children (2025) takes as its point of departure the work and legacy of Tamiji Kitagawa (1894–1989), a Japanese painter who lived in Mexico from 1921 to 1936 and became deeply engaged with muralism and the Open-Air Art Schools movement (Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre). Emerging from Mexico’s postrevolutionary reforms, these schools were conceived to bring art to children and adolescents in rural communities, positioning creativity as a form of emancipation. When Kitagawa returned to Japan, he brought back the lessons of muralism and art as a social practice. His large-scale public murals and advocacy for children’s creative freedom became central to his work in Aichi Prefecture after World War II. Cuevas’s mural situates this history within her ongoing investigation of how natural resources are exploited and how cultural memory is constructed.

Stretching vertically across two floors of the Seto City Art Museum in Japan, The Children brings together motifs from Kitagawa’s paintings that reflect a pre-Hispanic aesthetic such as rabbits, butterflies, crickets, and Quetzalcóatl, the Aztec deity in the form of a feathered serpent traversing earth and sky. These elements are interwoven with both traditional and contemporary Japanese forms, from netsuke (small carved toggles once used to secure pouches to kimono sashes) to references to video games such as a Gameboy and the Pokémon character Cubone. Cuevas also uses corporate logos like Toyota’s, reimagined as mushrooms inserted into the background, or those of mining companies like Delta Resources, incorporated as a floating sun, suggesting the infiltration of industry into culture and daily life.

Made of extruded polystyrene foam, the mural recalls the stuccoed facades of Mesoamerican monuments, yet its hybrid vocabulary situates it firmly in the present. Commissioned for the 2025 Aichi Triennale, The Children extends the exploration of large-scale relief murals Cuevas has been producing since 2021. In these works, Cuevas upholds muralism as a site where cultural memory, pedagogy, the politics of natural resources, and contemporary iconography converge.

.

+ about Minerva Cuevas

+ about aichi triennale 2025